


god is a woman

by Shewritesthings



Series: Fix-It Ficlets & Cute Drabbles [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Natasha Romanov, Brief Stucky, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Clintasha - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Love Confessions, M/M, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Lives, Natasha saves the world, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Tony Stark Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24884770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shewritesthings/pseuds/Shewritesthings
Summary: Natasha didn't die in Endgame, neither did Tony, and Steve didn't go back with Peggy.That's because Natasha is the only one that can make things right in this fucking franchise. And she does it with a gauntlet. And a whole lot of fancy space stones. Six, to be exact.PLEASE SEE THE BEAUTIFUL WORK DONE BY XMISSRUBI ON TUMBLR
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Fix-It Ficlets & Cute Drabbles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801966
Comments: 8
Kudos: 86





	god is a woman

“You said one out of 14 million.” Tony Stark, that grand and great inventor, gestured to the destruction and chaos around them, his sharp brown eyes urgent and demanding of an answer from the sorcerer. “Tell me this is it.”

The magician in question, Stephen Strange, with his wild red cape and flashy powers, threw a hunk of crushed metal straight into the heart of an advancing horde of alien monstrosities. The creatures screamed out in pain and death as the weight of the debris fell on top of them. Satisfied, Strange turned to Tony, his slate blue eyes were filled with a leery sense of foreboding. He wasn’t supposed to tell Stark how this ended. Not even the great Tony Stark could know the plans of the Celestials. “If I tell you, it won’t happen.”

Of course. _Of course, he couldn’t tell him._ No fucking spoilers. Not even on the day of the Apocalypse. Tony clenched his jaw and nodded with a frustrated expression, bunching his lips in irritation. “You better be right.”

Strange offered him a half-shrug that matched the equally severe expression on his face that seemed to say: ‘ _deal with it.’_ Before he levitated off of the ground, throwing surges of power into Thanos’ advancing masses.

The battle continued. Both sides intended to win. But, at least, for a moment, it seemed as if the Avengers could. Everyone seemed to have a special part to play – Wanda tore apart Thanos’ armor, Carol _obliterated_ the innerworkings of the Titan’s warship, Peter Parker mastered the control of “instant kill” ( _finally_ ), and Steve and Thor managed to solve who was going to use what mythical hammer of Worthiness. It really did seem like they were going to win.

_Could we really do this?_ Tony found himself thinking as the battle reigned on around them. _With all of us still in-tact?_ He turned to Pepper, her Rescue suit mask lifted up as she fixed him with that characteristic smirk. “If we live through this, you have to sell Gerard. He eats more than all three of us, Tony. It’s ridiculous.” She was teasing him. About their alpaca. In the middle of the battle. To save the universe. _Typical_. He chuckled as she blasted off, going off to help Carol and the rest of the A-Force crew fly the Infinity Gauntlet to safety. That woman left him speechless. Maybe that’s why he loved her so much. She was the only person in the _world_ he found worth listening to.

Well, there had been another person…but she was gone. Dead. Because they failed. He curled his fists in outrage. _No, they’d win this_. Natasha’s death wouldn’t be in vain. Turning sharply, he blasted off right into the middle of things. It was time to end this thing once and for all. And judging by the blast that exploded out from the back of Scott’s van, they wouldn’t have to wait long.

Rolling himself out of the rubble, Tony looked up to see the Infinity Gauntlet shimmering across from him. So was Thanos. He grunted, dragging himself to his feet, his popped ribs screaming in protest. _Get to it, Tony. Get to it. NOW._ He lunged for it, only for Thanos to throw him back. His head slammed against the rubble with a pained groan as he struggled to right himself.

Luckily, Thor stepped in with Stormbreaker, swinging it across Thanos’ chest as Mjölnir flung into his open hand. The ring of the battle axe and the thunderous hammer colliding over the Titan’s armor was deafening. Heads turned to watch the struggle, but no one was close enough to reach them. That is, except for Steve Rogers. Throwing himself on the back of the Titan, Steve grabbed hold of the mythical battle axe’s blade, crushing it harder up against Thanos’ head. Even so, the two Avengers weren’t enough. The purple-skinned Titan hurled Thor off him, before ramming the Captain’s face into the earth.

Nothing was standing in his way now. The Infinity Gauntlet was his. He was about to reach for it, his fingers curling around the metal when Carol appeared. Her body was like steel, unmovable, unflappable. She pushed against him, shoving him backwards, and yanking on the Gauntlet with all her worth. If they had had more time, if Thanos was more battle worn…if he hadn’t been as desperate to win as they were, maybe she could have killed him. But Thanos’ arrogance and raw desire to _destroy_ their existence with his hate was overpowering to Carol’s strength. Later on in her life, when she had reviewed the final battle several times over, she would remark that it was the _only_ time she had ever been bested by anyone. _Even when the world is ending,_ she would say, _you have to stay grounded. Even though you have the power to win, you have to be smart. Focused. I wasn’t. Not at the time._

But that was later. This was now. And in that moment, Thanos threw her across the battlefield, straight into a pile of metal and debris.

Tony cried out. She had been their last chance. _NO. This couldn’t happen again. Not_ again. He dizzily scrambled to his feet, grabbing fistfuls of earth to pull himself up once again. Something in his back screamed out in agony and a long gouge down the side of his temple oozed thick blood. None of it mattered. Strange, meeting his eyes from across the clearing, was pointing a shaky finger up into the sky. _The only way._ This was it. None of it mattered. Only this. Only this _one_ moment. The world was about to end. And Tony Stark was the only one who could stop it.

He reached for Thanos, fingers eagerly stretching for the Gauntlet. He only needed to take one Stone, steal one of the six. The Titan had seen him coming, however, and with a powerful sweep of his hand, sent him flying back from where he had just crawled out of.

By then, it was too late.

Tony couldn’t reach him in time.

His eyes sought for Pepper amongst the rubble, hoping for one last glimpse of her before Thanos destroyed everything of their known existence. He thought of Morgan. Back home, she was with Happy. At this time of day, she was probably eating a snack out on the porch. Carrot sticks and peanut butter. Ugh. Even on his deathbed awaiting the last few seconds of his existence, he had to hold back his disgust for his daughter’s quirky cravings. But he could see her. Looking up at the clouds, pointing out shapes of them to Happy. _That one looks like you, Uncle Happy, cuz’ it’s round and fluffy._ He smiled to himself as he looked up at the smoky sky. She was waiting for him to return. _Don’t worry, Morgoona…we’ll see each other soon._

At that moment, Thanos was raising his fist into the sky, feeling the power of the Stones surge through him. He laughed with maniacal glee. The universe seemed to hold its breath. The last few seconds of the known world trembled between his fingers. He was a snap away from destroying all of it. He turned to Tony, who lay prostrate on the ground a yard or so away from him. He grinned wickedly down at the man, all his power, all of his epic, hard-fought victory singed across his face. This was it. He was about to win. The Sun glowed around his head, cradling his silhouette in glorious, unadulterated light. If it was possible for Thanos to look beatific, this was the sole moment he probably could. _Of course,_ the Titan thought, _the Universe knows when her savior has finally come into himself._

“Face it, Stark.” His grinning face shifted to meet the eyes of the pitiful grief that was collapsing across Tony’s face. “I am… _inevitable_.” With a snap of his fingers, the world—

Wait.

He snapped his fingers again, but the Infinity Gauntlet was bare. All the stones. All the power. _Gone._

As if in response to Thanos’ panic, there was Stephen Strange, opening a golden-laced portal directly behind the Titan. It’s sprinkly, warm-tingled sound flickered softly over the silent battlefield. It sounded like magic. _It sounded like hope._ As the portal grew, a figure began to step through. _Who could this possibly be?_ Tony shifted closer to see the emerging figure, while Thor and Steve came to stand in shock at the appearance of yet _another_ hero on the scene.

When she came to stand to her full height, there was a collective gasp from the mangled group of Avengers watching the scene before them. Clad in a powerful white suit, with her glorious red hair billowing around her shoulders from the wind of the portal’s backdrop, was Natasha Romanoff. The Black Widow. A smug, unanswerable smile beamed across her face as she fixed her gaze on Thanos. “I’m sorry, did I step on your moment?” Her head was cocked, her green eyes were blazing forth like they alone contained a raging wildfire.

_She was alive._

Cheers were heard from across the plains of the Compound’s wreckage as they realized who had arrived. “ _HEY, I KNOW HER!”_ Scott screamed in recognition from beneath a broken piece of his van. Thor’s deep rumbling laugh was intertwined with Steve’s hysterical, breathy chuckle, as tears filled his eyes at the sight of their friend. She was here. Standing before them. _Alive._ Her absence, judging from the looks and tears on her friends’ faces, spoke of the profound void she had left in their lives with her death.

Thanos’ own expression at seeing the tiny Widow before him was priceless. His jaw was slightly dropped, ajar, and unable to shift back into place. While Natasha, with her chin lifted and her eyes burrowing into his, stood as if she was the same size as the massive Titan towering above her. If you squinted just right, and blurred your focus just enough, you could almost imagine that Natasha _was_ a giant. She was _not_ David, _she was_ _Goliath._ And in this scenario, it was her who seemed to emanate a power that could have crushed Thanos. She wasn’t afraid, Tony realized. No, fear was the last thing Natasha Romanoff had in that moment.

But as magnificent as her return was – it didn’t exactly explain why Thanos’ Gauntlet hadn’t worked? Or, why Strange had been able to summon a resurrected Natasha seconds after Thanos’ snap failed. Tony could feel panic rising in his chest. What did this _mean_? He shifted his gaze to the ground at Thanos’ feet, sweeping his eyes across the leveled dirt. Had the Stones fallen out? Had they gotten loose in the explosion and gotten lost somewhere beneath the earth?

He didn’t have to wait long for an answer, however, as Natasha had other plans. Raising her hand slowly as if she was opening the grandest World’s Fair, the redheaded assassin rounded her knuckles into a fist. And there, wrapped around her delicate fingers, was a glowing fistful of Infinity Stones. All of them. Shining forth like she had harnessed the stars of the sky and brought them down to wear as rings of her own, six rainbow stones glowed in her grasp. Somehow, someway, Natasha had outsmarted every single one of them. Not surprising. She was the Black Widow, after all.

“Turns out, Thanos, when you throw yourself off a cliff for the person you love most,” she smirked up at the purple-faced Titan, “the Universe decides to give you a little gift.” A regal smile wove itself across her lips like a handcrafted tapestry. “I’m Natasha _fucking_ Romanoff, asshole, _remember_ _the name_.” Everything about her in that moment – her voice, her eyes, her expression, the way that she stood before him – spoke of transcendent, unspeakable authority. There was something deep and guttural about how she said her words, spoke the language that rolled off of her tongue, as if it reached up from the heavens and descended onto their meek human ears. It was easy to recognize once Tony put it together: Natasha Romanoff was no longer human, she was _divine_. _God is a woman,_ he thought.

Curving her fingers in the Gauntlet inward, with her thumb and forefinger sliding together, Natasha offered Thanos one more wretchedly beautiful smile – teeth and all. She wanted him to know the joy it brought her to destroy him. And then, without wasting another moment, a powerful, earth-shattering _snap_ echoed across the wreckage around them. Some sort of ethereal whisper blew across the fields. It brushed up against their skin like a soft kiss or a sweet caress. After that, nothing seemed to happen. They all looked around at each other, not really sure if it had worked or not. Natasha even slid the smoking Gauntlet off of her fingers, unceremoniously dropping it to the ground.

What would have killed anyone else, only seemed to make the assassin slightly agitated. She kicked the burnt-out, but still-glowing glove further into the dirt and shook out her wrist with a ‘tsk.’ _Well, that’s that._ She seemed to say as she placed her hands on her hips, looking around.

And it seemed, that _was_ that, indeed. Thanos and his armies began to dissolve into ashes, crying out in discomfort and fear as their lives were dissipated into the earth. Thanos, himself, turned to meet Natasha’s eyes as he fell to his knees. His massive purple eyes locked on hers with a hatred so thick and vitriolic that it seemed he could have shredded her with only his gaze. Natasha walked over to him with her arms crossed over her chest. Standing over his kneeling form, she leaned down, making sure they were level as she spoke. She truly was Goliath then. No squinting required. “I sacrificed myself for the Universe.” She murmured to him, grabbing hold of his molting shoulder, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “What did you do to deserve _any_ of it?”

With a snarl, Thanos reached up to grab hold of her, but his fingers, barely brushing up against her chin, dissolved right off of his hand. He cried out as his body exploded into ash, falling down around Natasha’s feet. She stepped out of the brown, ashy substance with disgust. “Gross.”

That was it.

It was over.

They had won.

There was an explosion of mirth as everyone, _everyone_ began to cheer. Rocket, who had obviously been trying to pick up Groot in excitement, only managed to pick up half of his stumpy leg as they danced around in joy. Valkyrie, pulling her sword out of the guts of an alien carcass, smiled over at the all-powerful Carol Danvers, who seemed more interested in Valkyrie’s sword than the beautiful woman suggestively grinning at her _._ Rhodey grinned over at Sam as he held up a half-broken Falcon wing. “You lookin’ for this?”

Thor triumphantly socked Steve so hard in the shoulder, the super soldier heard a _crack_ as he turned with a deeply offensive gaze to shake his head at the thunder god.

“Did you just dislocate my shoulder? We survived the end of the world, but you dislocate my shoulder?”

“Uh. Sorry.” Thor scratched the back of his neck with a wince that spoke of his apologetic air.

In another part of the battlefield, perched on top of some busted pipes, was the newly resurrected Clint Barton, the Hawkeye. Clint, like many others that were celebrating in the wreckage below, had been “blipped.” He hadn’t journeyed to the edge of Vormir with Natasha. Not this time, at least. So, he couldn’t have possibly known the irreparable sacrifice that she had made all on her _own._ For him. It was the first time he could remember, in all of his life, that someone had cared that much about him. _Say it if you’re gonna say it, Barton, but I’m not gonna to wait for you get your head out of your ass._ Natasha had told him the night before Thanos landed in Wakanda five years prior. They had both been on the run along with Steve, Sam, and Wanda. The Accords had sent them along with each other, needing one another more than any feud. The tension, the unspoken feelings, and the cementing realization that they both loved each other was something both of them struggled with.

Of course, Natasha being Natasha – straightforward and no bullshit – had told him first. Years ago. _I’ve never loved anyone before you, and honestly, Clint, I don’t plan on loving anyone else. You’re the only person I care about._ She shook her head and gave a half-hearted shrug as if that was a known fact of existence in the natural world. Clint Barton was the only person she cared about. He was the only person she loved.

She hadn’t expected him to say it back, and Clint being Clint, did not. He didn’t know how. How to put into words the insurmountable emotion and depth of meaning the two shared? _Love?_ That couldn’t possibly cover the number of bullets she had taken for him over the years. It couldn’t possibly cover that first wintery night he had helped her escape in Moscow, when she had curled up next to him in a frozen ditch, their bodies protecting one another from hypothermia. It couldn’t possibly cover the ins-and-outs of hundreds of recon missions they had worked, accomplished, and packaged up nice and pretty for Fury. _Love?_ No. That didn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg. So, he said nothing, and then a few years later, Thanos came.

Natasha had given him an ultimatum, but one that he hadn’t been ready for. It was as if she knew they both couldn’t make it out alive. She had been braver than him. He knew that. He always knew that. And now, beyond all belief and circumstance, he had another chance to tell her. Clint wouldn’t mess this up. Not this time.

Meanwhile, Natasha, back in the main clearing, turned her head over her shoulder to look at the shocked faces that were behind her. The smile that came to her face seemed to say ‘ _gotcha!_ ’ like she had planned the whole thing. Tony, who didn’t appear to be shocked at all, was standing closest to her, his face was filled with all things warm and bright. That devoted, loving smile was resting on his face – the one only reserved for the people he loved most.

“Did you miss me?” With a raise of her brow, Natasha sauntered over to him. Her greeting, of course, was in reference to the entrance Stark had made years ago. Flying into Munich like a trapeze artist as he zipped through the airspace in front of her quinjet, blasting ACDC over the airwaves. That had been the first time they all fought together. At the time, Natasha had rolled her eyes and found it wickedly annoying as most things she found annoying about Tony Stark. Now, as she looked at that same wickedly annoying man, after all these years, the two of them working side-by-side as both allies and friends, those words could only have been spoken out of sheer affection.

The inventor chuckled with a shake of his head, there was the sparkle of tears in his eyes as he pulled her into a tight hug. “You got me, Miss. Romanoff. I’ll admit it, I _did_ miss you.” He whispered into her ear. That, of course, resulted in a brassy laugh from Natasha.

“I know. It’s an awful feeling, isn’t it?” She rolled her eyes as she smiled into his neck. “Emotions.” Her delivery of the word was fairly ironic as it was seemingly garbled with said-‘emotions.’ He could hear the tears in her voice. She was just as glad to see them as they were to see her.

With one last squeeze between the two friends, the two broke away. Natasha turned to address the growing line of friends and fellow Avengers who lined up to hug and embrace their resurrected partner. Tony watched with adoration as their team reunited, laughed, and cried over their returned member. _They had won._ He didn’t care how Romanoff had done it, how she had come back from the fucking dead. But he sure was _glad._ What would have happened if she hadn’t? Yeesh. He didn’t want to think about that.

Coming up beside him, Pepper leaned her head against his shoulder. A small, sweet smile was on her face as she watched the joyful reunions before them. “Do you think you can rest now?” Her words were soft, inaudible to all except to Tony.

He blinked out of his reverie as he glanced down to his wife, a wide and liberated smile shined across his face. Thanos was gone, Natasha was back. _He was alive_. “Yeah, Pep. I think I can.” The battle was won. Maybe it was time to rest like the wife had said. Hang up the “iron” armor once and for all. Well, maybe once in a blue moon. You never know.

Down below, Natasha was hugging the last of the group, when her eyes fell upon the lean and lanky blonde-haired dufus standing before her. It was the first time in five years she was seeing him. _If I do this,_ she had asked the Watcher atop of Vormir, _does he live? Does he come back?_ The Red Skull, with his billowing robe and threadbare hood, had simply watched her. _A soul for a soul, Natalia. That is the way the world works._ Well, all things considered, that had made a great deal of sense to Natasha. Her soul for Clint’s. Let’s be clear, however, this was not a redemptive act for the assassin – she didn’t care if her soul was “pure” or “saved” by the unknown forces of the universe. No. All she had ever truly _cared_ about was that idiot in front of her.

And now, here he was.

Tears swam in her vision as she raised those great cat eyes to meet his soft blue ones. “It worked.” She said softly, taking him in. From his messy hair (which, she figured he probably hadn’t brushed it in three weeks), to the same-as-always scruffy 5 o’clock shadow the man seemed hard-pressed to keep. He was _here._ Without another word, Natasha ransacked the master archer, pulling the man into her arms as she buried her face into his chest. A mute, but audible cry escaped Clint’s lips as he tangled his arms around her, leaving no spare ounce of space between them. They were interwoven, plaited, _braided_ together like some sort of complicated fishtail. Woven up together in an embrace of their own making.

“You came back.” She whispered to him. He could feel the tears brushing up against the skin of his collarbone as she burrowed herself into him.

Clint’s face, crushed into her sweet-smelling hair, clinched up in pain at the weight of her words. _Say it if you’re gonna say it, Barton._ He pulled back just enough so he could look into her eyes, analyze the fine lines and molds of her cheekbones, the softness of her nose. _Say it if you’re gonna say it, Barton._ “I love you.” He blurted out, words clashing with poorly timed grace within the situation. Eyes wide at his long-kept secret admission, he swallowed and took her face in his hands, giving a little shake of his head. His expression was strained with swells of twisted, unclear emotion. Clint, who was terrible with words, was trying to explain “love” to a woman who had once tried to kill him. “I uh… I love you. There. I uh… I said it.”

To Natasha, Clint – with his wild eyes and strangled expression of confusion and urgency – looked ridiculous. He was holding her cheeks like she was a show-and-tell prize to a kids’ classroom. With a buoyant and elated chuckle, Natasha bit her lip and smiled up at him with a sweet but knowing expression. “You thought I didn’t know?”

“ _Did you?_ ” Clint’s eyebrows shot up all the way across his head as his voice rose a whole octave.

The assassin laughed with an expression that seemed to communicate with an even, heartbreaking measure that she knew _everything_ about him. She reached up on her tiptoes and gave him an eye-fluttering, heart-skipping, hands-tangled-in-his-hair _kiss._ At that point, the ground dropped out from under him and Clint was pretty sure they were floating out in dead space. The only thing keeping him tethered to the last bastion of human existence being Natasha’s fingers locked and twisted up in his hair. Well, what a _way_ to go.

She pulled away before he was finished, leaving him breathless and offkilter. How could she just kiss someone like that? And then… _leave?_ “I’m taking it…that was a good thing?”

Natasha pushed some loose, ash-tinged hair behind his ear with a tender smile. The fading sunset brushed up against her side profile, making her soft and bright features seem to be entrapped in the crystalline streaks of sun and sky. “Clint, you’ve saved the same crappy coffee mug I bought you the first day I moved to New York. _Fifteen years ago._ I knew.” Her green eyes shifted up to his with a jerk of her eyebrow. She was looking at him as if this was the most obvious statement of fact.

“It said ‘I heart NYC’ – how could I _not_ keep that? I _do_ heart NYC.” 

“You broke the handle off the first day I gave it to you.” She snickered with a shake of her head.

“Gave it some character.” He had to smile in memory of the knickknack. All chipped and battered and cracked. A sign of Natasha’s gratitude for pulling her out of Moscow. _You drink out of a coffee pot. I figured you could use one of these._ His eyes shifted away from 24-year-old Natasha Romanoff gifting him with a shitty New York City tourist souvenir, to the current one standing before him. God, he was a sucker. Of course, she had known. Master of observation, trained to read people like a book, x-ray vision into the very souls of man. Right. She had known even before he knew how to put words to feelings. Tasha had known, just as she always did. “So, where does that leave us?” He asked after a long moment, looking at her with soft blue eyes.

Natasha raised an eyebrow with that characteristic smirk pulling at her features. “We can figure it out as we go.” She looked up into his eyes, her own shifting back and forth between them with a teasing grin resurfacing through the smugness of her smirk. And then she was kissing him, wrapping her arms around his neck, leaning up against him as her toes crooned down into the dirt.

This time, Clint was ready for her. And in that beautiful moment – with the sun fading out behind them and the battle won – he made a little promise to himself to _always_ be ready for her.

* * *

A few days later, when most of the excitement had worn down, Natasha had invited Steve out on a walk with her. She had known there was something particularly heavy on the super soldier’s mind and she intended to get to the bottom of it. “You’re awfully grim for a guy who has his best friend back.” She said as they hiked down a mountain trail, overlooking the rubble of the old Avengers’ Compound.

Steve grinned to himself as he stuffed his hands into his jean pockets. “Who’s that? You?”

“Yeah, _me_.” She huffed as if his words had gutted her with the deepest of betrayals.

“Sorry.” He laughed as he brought a hand up to scratch the back of his neck. “I won’t mislabel you ever again.” His eyes looked guarded, lost in thought. He was entirely stuck up in his own head. His brow knitted in thought even as he offered her a warm smile. You would have thought the guy was trying to solve the world’s toughest equation.

Natasha watched his face closely, noting the smile that seemed pinned tackily up to his face. He was faking it. That, or he wasn’t really listening. That was the thing about Steve. The guy was so friendly, so gooey-mushy warm, that you often didn’t notice when he _wasn’t_ paying attention. “I know what you’re thinking, Rogers.” She remarked with her eyes remaining hooked onto his face.

They stopped walking as Steve turned around to look at her. He seemed shocked she would even have noticed. “You don’t fight next to a guy for a decade, Steve, and _not_ know when he’s thinking about some life-altering decision.”

With a hidden smile, Steve offered up a modest snicker as he nodded, giving into her observation. “I should have known with you, huh?”

Natasha gave a half-hearted shrug with an equal half-grin. “Eh. Don’t beat yourself up. I’m a spy. So, take that as you will.” Her eyes watched his expression for another beat, before she turned to look over the cliff they were standing on. Bruce and Tony had already started reconstruction of the Compound. The ploughs and cranes were working noisily below them, picking up gallons of rubble and removing it from the formation of the building. “So, what _is_ this life-altering decision of yours?”

Steve was silent for a long moment as he came to stand beside her. He wasn’t looking forward as she was, however, he was looking down at his feet. Crestfallen and confused. “Tony and I… Back on the mission, we had to reroute to 1970 to find our Stone. And…uh… I saw Peggy.” He went deathly silent as if he had stopped breathing. Natasha thought he _had_ stopped breathing, before she looked over at him, only to see that Steve’s face had drained of color. A white, hollowed silence followed as sympathy wrote itself large and elegant across her face.

“She was… She was the Director of SHIELD.” He shrugged as he spoke as if to emphasize his words. “I always knew she moved on, but I just didn’t…” He trailed off with a solemn shake of his head. His head was bowed with his long, curled eyelashes resting on his cheeks as pain sharpened his expression.

“You just didn’t want to accept it.” She finished for him, watching his crushed expression. Steve looked up at her with tears glittering in the banks of his lashes. They threatened to fall, but he blinked them away.

“Yeah.” For a long time, Steve said nothing before he rolled his shoulders and readjusted his stance. “I don’t belong here, Nat. I never have really.” He said weakly. His words sounded like they physically pained him to form and articulate. “I think I need to uh… I think I need to go back.”

Natasha turned sharply to look up at him. Her eyes digging into his. “What?”

“It just makes sense. Tony’s retiring to raise Morgan, Thor’s going to travel with the Guardians…you’re…”

Natasha raised a hostile little eyebrow, “I’m what?”

Steve chuckled and nodded, understanding what she was getting at. “Nothing. You’re perfect.”

The assassin nodded as if to push down on his statement. “Damn straight.” She crossed her arms and kicked some pebbles off the side of the ridge with the toe of her boot. “Listen, you _know_ I understand the feeling of not quite belonging anywhere.” She shifted her gaze back up to the side of his face, watching every movement of his profile. “But you’re an idiot if you don’t think you have a reason to stay.”

Frowning in confusion, Steve glanced up at her, their eyes meeting. “What do you mean?”

Natasha rolled her eyes with a dramatic sigh. Did she _really_ have to say it? “Steve. Bucky has been in love with you for _70 years_. Don’t _tell_ me you didn’t know that.”

The super soldier blinked once, twice – no, _three_ times, before reality finally seemed to seep back into his expression. “What do you mean he’s _in love_ with me?”

“I mean…we knew each other back in the 60’s, Rogers. You know, when we were both killing people for a living. And even then, after a decade of brainwashing, there were parts of himself that knew you existed. He would tell me he’d dream of this scrawny blonde-haired kid who was just… _screaming_ for him from out of all this darkness in his head...begging for him to wake up.” She paused as she remembered the distraught confessions Bucky had shared with her so long ago. “ _Anyway_ , HYDRA didn’t like the idea of Bucky having dreams, so they destroyed that too.” Finishing her speech, Natasha turned to look up at Steve’s pale and worn face. A revelation as pure and as bright as a sunrise was making itself known across his features. “But he knew you, Steve. I think sometimes… It’s the only thing that’s kept him alive. Knowing you. _Loving_ you.”

“He… He loves _me_.” His sea blue eyes, muddled with green and brown, were lost in a welt of emotion, buried deep in a mixture of thought and shock. And then, the doubt that had been hanging on his face, the skepticism, the argument – it all faded away. No, _melted._ It melted away. A free man turned to look at her then, eyes clear and filled with tears. “I guess I gotta go see that dumbass, huh?”

“I think you do.” She smiled mischievously as he began to walk off. Before she called to him: “Rogers –” Steve turned back to look at her – “does this mean you’re staying?”

With an incredulous shake of his head at her question, a truly magnificent smile came to his face. That smile, the sparkle in his eyes, the ease of his shoulders, it all spoke of something that Steve had never really ever felt: _belonging_. “No. You’re stuck with me.” 

She offered Steve a warm, but pleased expression – the one that made her eyes look like they actually _glowed_ – before Natasha shifted her gaze back up to the sky, smiling up into the sun as it reached down to cradle her face. For a moment, she closed her eyes, relishing in the sense of being alive…of being _free,_ and the world being silent and safe.

And that’s _that_ , she thought.


End file.
